Doing a full reset to factory settings on your iPhone is important for many reasons: here’s why you need to erase all data from your smartphone
Even iPhones crash. We all know that smartphones from the bitten apple on average age slower than Android competitors, and we also all know that this is mainly due to the fact that Apple prevents developers from publishing too “invasive” applications on the App Store. Sometimes, though, it becomes necessary to format iPhones.
That is, reset them to factory conditions, wiping away from the internal memory all the data and settings accumulated over months and months of daily use of the applephone. Sometimes it is necessary to do it to solve some serious problem, other times it is good to do it simply to lengthen the life of the iPhone by relieving it of unnecessary loads. Finally, it is essential to do it before selling or giving someone else our phone, otherwise the new owner will be able to access our data (including those of any credit cards registered on the phone). Here’s what happens when we format an iPhone, and how to do it.
What Formatting iPhone Means
In fact, by the word “format” we mean “reset”. Only, on iPhone, there’s not just one type of reset but as many as six: the settings-only reset, the settings and content reset, the network settings reset, the keyboard dictionary reset, the home screen reset, and the location and privacy settings reset. The real reset, the one that can rejuvenate the iPhone, is the full settings and content reset.
What to do before resetting the iPhone
When we choose this type of reset, we can say goodbye to all our photos, documents, chats, OS and individual app settings. The iPhone, in fact, returns as virgin as when we took it out of the box the first time. That’s why, before doing a full reset, it’s a good idea to make a full backup of our data.
We can do this by depositing the data on a computer, via iTunes, or by sending it to iCloud. In the latter case we simply have to go to Settings > Our name > iCloud and tap on “Backup iCloud” to activate it. Then we need to tap on “Backup now”. Backing up to iCloud requires a connection to a Wi-Fi network. To check its progress, we can go to Settings > Our Name > iCloud > iCloud Backup.
How to Reset iPhone
Once our data is safe, we can proceed to format the device. To perform a complete reset of an iPhone we need to go to Settings > General > Reset and the six options already shown will appear. We choose to erase all content and settings to proceed to format the device. We’ll lose everything, as already explained, but we’ll return our iPhone to factory settings.